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Jude the Obscure

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In a remote corner of early Victorian England, where traditional practices remain untouched by time, Bathsheba Everdene stands out as a beacon of female independence and self-reliance. However, when confronted with three suitors, among them the dashing Sergeant Troy, she shows a reckless capriciousness that threatens the stability of the whole community. Published in 1874, and an immediate best seller, Far From the Madding Crowd established Thomas Hardy as one of Britain's foremost novelists.

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By
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The Return of the Native

By:
Thomas Hardy

Narrated by:
Alan Rickman

Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
15

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
14

Story

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Set on Egdon Heath, a fictional barren moor in Wessex, Eustacia Vye longs for the excitement of city life but is cut off from the world in her grandfather's lonely cottage. Clym Yeobright who has returned to the area to become a schoolmaster seems to offer everything she dreams of: passion, excitement and the opportunity to escape. However, Clym's ambitions are quite different, and marriage only increases Eustacia's destructive restlessness, drawing others into a tangled web of deceit and unhappiness.

Far From the Madding Crowd

By:
Thomas Hardy

Narrated by:
Jamie Parker

Length: 14 hrs and 52 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
30

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
30

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
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In a remote corner of early Victorian England, where traditional practices remain untouched by time, Bathsheba Everdene stands out as a beacon of female independence and self-reliance. However, when confronted with three suitors, among them the dashing Sergeant Troy, she shows a reckless capriciousness that threatens the stability of the whole community. Published in 1874, and an immediate best seller, Far From the Madding Crowd established Thomas Hardy as one of Britain's foremost novelists.

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Tess of the D'Urbervilles

By:
Thomas Hardy

Narrated by:
Peter Firth

Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
15

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
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Story

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14

When John Durbeyfield discovers a family connection to the ancient Norman family, the D'Urbervilles, the fate of daughter Tess is transformed. Sent by her ambitious parents to visit her wealthy D'Urberville cousins, Tess attracts the attention of the unscrupulous Alec. Seduced and discarded by him and alone in the world, she finds work as a milkmaid and the love of Angel Clare. Yet his love cannot accept the truth about Tess's past.

Middlemarch

By:
George Eliot

Narrated by:
Juliet Stevenson

Length: 35 hrs and 38 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
112

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
110

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
109

Dorothea Brooke is an ardent idealist who represses her vivacity and intelligence for the cold, theological pedant Casaubon. One man understands her true nature: the artist Will Ladislaw. But how can love triumph against her sense of duty and Casaubon’s mean spirit? Meanwhile, in the little world of Middlemarch, the broader world is mirrored: the world of politics, social change, and reforms, as well as betrayal, greed, blackmail, ambition, and disappointment.

5 out of 5 stars

Masterpiece and superbly read.

By
Allie C
on
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The Woodlanders

By:
Thomas Hardy

Narrated by:
Samuel West

Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins

Unabridged

Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
6

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
6

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
6

Set in the Dorset landscape familiar to Hardy novels,
The Woodlanders concerns the fortunes of Giles Winterborne, whose love for the well-do-do Grace Melbury is challenged by the arrival of a dashing and dissolute doctor, Edred Fitzpiers. When the mysterious Mrs Charmond further complicates the romantic entanglements, marital choice and class mobility become inextricably linked.

4 out of 5 stars

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By
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on
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Ernest Hemingway

Narrated by:
Campbell Scott

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Performance

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The great city of Troy is under siege as Greek heroes Achilles and Agamemnon wage bloody war over a stolen woman. In the Greek camp, another woman is watching and waiting: Briseis. She was a queen of this land until Achilles sacked her city and murdered her husband and sons. Now she is Achilles' concubine: a prize of battle. Briseis is just one among thousands of women backstage in this war - the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead - all of them voiceless in history.

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A complex plot of love and inheritance is set against the English legal system of the mid-19th century. As the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce drags on, it becomes an obsession to everyone involved. And the issue on an inheritance ultimately becomes a question of murder.

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Audie Award Winner, Audiobook of the Year, 2013. Audie Award Nominee, Best Solo Narration, 2013. Graham Greene’s evocative analysis of the love of self, the love of another, and the love of God is an English classic that has been translated for the stage, the screen, and even the opera house. Academy Award-winning actor Colin Firth (The King's Speech, A Single Man) turns in an authentic and stirring performance for this distinguished audio release.

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Performance

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After escaping from the dark and dismal workhouse where he was born, Oliver finds himself on the mean streets of Victorian-era London and is unwittingly recruited into a scabrous gang of scheming urchins. In this band of petty thieves, Oliver encounters the extraordinary and vibrant characters who have captured audiences' imaginations for more than 150 years.

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Written at the request of Charles Dickens,
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Juliet does it again.

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Performance

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Featuring a fictional version of himself - 'Marcel' - and a host of friends, acquaintances, and lovers,
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Performance

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Story

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A Signature Performance: Kenneth Branagh plays this like a campfire ghost story, told by a haunted, slightly insane Marlow.

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Performance

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Story

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A mysterious boatman on the Thames, a drowned heir, a dustman and his wife, and a host of other Dickens characters populate this novel of relationships between the classes, money, greed, and love. The 58 characters are presented with remarkable clarity by David Timson.

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War and Peace, Volume 1

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Overall

4.5 out of 5 stars
61

Performance

4.5 out of 5 stars
56

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
56

War and Peace is one of the greatest monuments in world literature. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars, it examines the relationship between the individual and the relentless march of history. Here are the universal themes of love and hate, ambition and despair, youth and age, expressed with a swirling vitality which makes the book as accessible today as it was when it was first published in 1869.

3 out of 5 stars

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Vanity Fair

A Novel without a Hero

By:
William Makepeace Thackeray

Narrated by:
Georgina Sutton

Length: 32 hrs and 18 mins

Unabridged

Overall

5 out of 5 stars
9

Performance

5 out of 5 stars
9

Story

4.5 out of 5 stars
9

Vanity Fair, with its rich cast of characters, takes place on the snakes-and-ladders board of life. Amelia Sedley, daughter of a wealthy merchant, has a loving mother to supervise her courtship. Becky Sharp, an orphan, has to use her wit, charm, and resourcefulness to escape from her destiny as a governess. This she does ruthlessly, musing: "I think I could become a good woman, if I had £5,000 a year."

Editorial Reviews

This is why you listen, or why you should: Because a good performance is more than an easy way to "read" a book. And a great performance enhances the original, no matter how great (or not) it may be. Jenny Sterlin animates Hardy's characters without calling attention to herself - that is without raising thoughts of "here's a woman trying to sound like a man." She encourages continued listening when continued reading might be difficult; for example, when Sue and Jude are at their most exasperating. Sterlin's performance is recommended to all listeners - not just fans of Hardy or classic British literature. After all, this is why you listen. Or why you should.

Publisher's Summary

When the great Thomas Hardy published this heart-wrenching novel, he had no idea it would be his last. But the book stirred so much controversy and protest, Hardy vowed to never write fiction again. Jude the Obscure tells the story of a stonemason, tricked into a loveless marriage, who craves a formal education and a finer existence. Separated from his wife, Jude begins a new life with his cousin, and the couple defies social convention at every turn.

Sue drives me nuts!

So extremely insightful and forward thinking of Hardy but, literary merits aside, I couldn't abide Sue as a character. Drove me nuts. But why she drive me nuts would be why so many others love her. Very well narrated and was effortless to listen and appreciate (aside from Sue's antics). Not my favourite Hardy novel, but overall glad to have listened to it.

Sort by:

Overall

5 out of 5 stars

Performance

5 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

D. Byrd

17-10-2015

A sad and world-changing book

I found this title on a list of books that will change the way you think. And, indeed, published in the late 1800s it must have been a shock to many at the time. It so criticizes and even destroys the notion of marriage as a universal good. Today, in North America at least, we all except the idea that the first person you marry might not be the last. But this book must've been one of the first to place the idea of righteous divorce in print, and, for that reason it must've been one of the first to change the great secret that many marriages are unhappy, previously only hidden in the hearts of so many. Poor Jude and poor Sue. My heart broke for them, reading this.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Overall

5 out of 5 stars

Performance

5 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

circa24

30-06-2018

One of Hardy's Most Powerful Tales

Not everyone finds Thomas Hardy to their taste. However, if you like Hardy's other works, such as the Mayor of Caserbridge or Tess of the Dubivilles, you will like Jude the Obscure. Anyone who has reached for the stars only to find reality and circumstance standing in their way will be able to empathize with Jude, the labourer who dreams of being a scholar. He is the good man who makes one bad choice early in life and spends his remaining days burdened by that decision. Great reader. Throughly enjoyed the book.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Overall

2 out of 5 stars

Performance

4 out of 5 stars

Story

1 out of 5 stars

valerie

17-03-2013

Ugh!

This Nartor is amazing!! If you like the english accent she is great I think I read another book by her about a scottish family. I enjoyed her reading but not the book at all. I finally stopped listenin, it was just too depressing, I just couldn't hang in long enough to find out if any good was going to happen to this guy